More Than Just Talk, We've Taken Action.

Here are some of the changes we’ve made. Some of these might seem trivial but remember, everything you do counts. We are just getting started!

In our Manufacturing Facilities
•	We are switching over all lighting in our facilities from old metal halide lights to new highly efficient fluorescent fixtures. These new light fixtures use only 230 watts vs the 460 watts the old fixtures required. Plus, while we were at it we repositioned all lighting to better suit our present day needs. This allowed us to reduced the number of fixtures in some cases by almost half, further reducing our power consumption. Finally, we 'rezoned' some buildings so we can turn off lighting in the areas that are not in use at the time.
	We are starting with the least efficient facilities, but by the end of 2008, we will have made a complete conversion to modern fluorescent lighting.
•	Our diesel forklifts are using 2% biodiesel fuel.
•	Our forklift drivers have made a commitment to turn their vehicles off when idle for a minute or more to save gas and keep our warehouse air cleaner. With more than 30 forklifts in operation, this makes a difference!
•	We are constantly looking for ways to reduce lumber handling or the number of forklifts in production through lean manufacturing practices.
•	Our four boilers used to fuel our kilns all run on wood waste from our millwork activities – using virtually no fossil-fuels. We have implemented new boiler operation standards to conserve water and minimize the chemicals required to treat our water.
•	We are recycling aluminum, plastic and cardboard in all of our plants.
•	We have reduced the areas we mow at our facilities by creating designated wildlife areas. In White Pigeon, we have a designated walking trail for employees with six bluebird houses built by employees along the trail.
•	We have minimized landscape sprinkler usage and lawn chemicals around our corporate office.

In Our Offices
•	We now use only chlorine-free recycled copy paper.
•	We have eliminated the use of styrofoam cups.
•	If we don’t need lights on during the day, we keep them off!
•	We’ve installed programmable digital thermostats in all of our offices and we have made an effort to maintain more conservative temperatures and dress accordingly to save energy.
•	We have reduced the use of trash bags in our offices by 75% by simply taking “wet waste” to the kitchen.
•	We are recycling all plastic, aluminum, glass and white office paper.
•	We’ve replaced old light bulbs with CFL’s everywhere possible.
•	We are e-mailing invoices to our customers instead of mailing wherever possible to save paper and fossil-fuel usage in the mailing process.
•	We’ve installed a “laser fiche” system which will help eliminate paper in our offices. Documents will be electronically viewed and stored. It’s weird not walking to the file cabinet but a cool way to save trees!

Company Wide
•	Our Environmental Committee meets once a month to review progress on initiatives and discuss ways to improve our business practices to reduce our environmental impact.
•	As communication and education are essential to inspiration, we have established both THIS WEB PAGE and an E-Newsletter as a way of keeping everyone in our company informed of what’s happening.
•	We have made a long term commitment to tree farming. This is very exciting stuff! We have purchased our first tract of land and next spring we will be planting approximately 18,500 seedlings. Tree farming is great because the land we are buying will be protected from future development. Plus, there are always areas on each property unsuitable for tree planting but perfect for wildlife habitat restoration. We will be posting our progress on this web site as our journey in tree farming begins.